it was decided that I would remain, the Noble House offered no further explanation.
That silence was not neglect; it was method.
Days unfolded with a precision that felt deliberate in its restraint, shaped by routine rather than instruction, and I began to understand that the house was watching not for obedience, but for endurance. I was allowed to exist within its walls, given food, clothing, and structure, yet none of it came with acknowledgement, as though recognition itself was something that had to be earned.
I was placed among the trainees without introduction.
No name was spoken for me, and none was asked.
I stood among boys who responded when called, who corrected themselves when addressed, and who carried the quiet confidence of being recognized, even if they did not yet know what recognition would cost them. I, on the other hand, was directed by gesture alone, moved from place to place without language, as though words were being deliberately withheld.
Training was consistent and unrelenting.
Movements were corrected efficiently, without explanation or encouragement, and fatigue was observed rather than addressed. When I adapted, nothing was said. When I endured, nothing changed. The absence of response made improvement feel uncertain, as though progress itself was something I was not yet allowed to claim.
I was not being shaped.
I was being measured.
The observation extended beyond the training grounds.
I felt it in the corridors, in the lower halls, in the spaces where servants worked with careful distance and guards watched with quiet interest. Even casual movement felt deliberate under that kind of attention, as though the house itself was recording patterns, waiting to see where they might break.
Elisa passed me more than once during those days.
Her presence was familiar in a way that made restraint difficult, yet she said nothing, and neither did I. When our eyes met briefly, there was recognition there, quickly masked by discipline, and I understood that acknowledgment could be interpreted as attachment.
Attachment was dangerous.
At night, alone in my narrow room, I lay awake listening to the sounds of the house settling around me, and I thought about how easily a person could be erased here without resistance. Without a name, without explanation, without anyone openly claiming responsibility, disappearance would not require force.
It would require silence.
That realization did not weaken me.
It hardened something inside.
No summons came.
No judgment was announced.
Instead, the days continued, steady and unremarkable, each one pressing slightly harder than the last, as though the Noble House were testing how much pressure could be applied without provoking reaction.
And as I moved through those days unnamed and unaddressed, I understood the truth of my position.
I was not yet considered worth defining.
Until I proved otherwise, I would remain exactly as I was—present, observed, and unmarked.